As a reader service (the letter is below), let’s help define a word: xenophobia. “Fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything foreign or strange.”

Perhaps some visual learning aids are in order:

1. Allen County Sheriff Dan Beck, who decided to make up numbers about illegal immigrants in Allen County to make sure everyone was plenty afeared.

2. Lima City Councilclown Derry Glenn who objects to the way “A-rabs” and foreigners” run their businesses in Lima, Councilclown Glenn being such an expert on such things.

 3. The Ohio Republican Party, particularly those in the House who have decided that, two centuries of being a state and never having had to worry about such, they now need to tell local governments they may only keep records in English.

The letter seeking clarification:

I noticed in reading the Lima News on Tuesday about Fahim Eddir addressing Lima City Council and, on Wednesday in Mike Lackey’s column about the same appearance, the word xenophobia is used. I had no idea what it meant. Is it something good or bad?
I compliment Mr. Eddir on his vocabulary, but can somebody give me a synonym or a hint of what xenophobia is?
I have a four-year college degree and, in about 50 years of reading and listening, I never have heard or seen the word. I have heard that newspapers write for a seventh- or eighth-grade reading level. Has the word xenophobia ever been used in a spelling bee contest?
My dictionary says xenophobia is “the unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of what is foreign or strange.”
I find it hard to read The Lima News holding the newspaper in one hand and a dictionary in the other.

News media 101 for whoever replaces Allen County Sheriff Dan Beck: When you don’t want to draw attention to something, don’t hold a news conference about it.

That might seem like common sense, but it appears to be complex thought for our four-term sheriff.

Beck held a news conference Wednesday because the local media hadn’t reported on a white supremacist group’s claims that it sent and passed out racially derogatory fliers to Lima residents. During that news conference, he said he didn’t want to give such groups media exposure.

Huh? (more…)

Does anyone else remember the story of illegal immigrants shooting one of Allen County Sheriff Dan Beck’s brave deputies? No? Oh, maybe because it never happened.

Sheriff Dan somehow twisted the facts of one drunken driving accident into a murdered deputy, per this blog from
McHenry County, Ill. 

http://www.mchenrycountyblog.com/2007/11/what-daniel-beck-told-minutemen-at-mcc_02.html

Apparently, the county’s chief megalomaniac hasn’t figured out that the Internet brings all those lies you tell about home, back home. He wants to be Lima’s mayor, and started off by running down
Lima.  

What would state Sen. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, have said about this?

A Washington politician introduces legislation with no chance of getting out of the House, but that would impose Washington’s will on the 50 states if it did — on a state issue. The measure is popular back home, given the political environment — even if our Washington politician struggles to justify such measures to someone with the limited government beliefs of state Sen. Jim Jordan. (more…)

How long are we going to keep our heads down here?

“Down here” meaning buried in the sand.

A couple of headlines on Associated Press stories from last week to demonstrate what I mean:

• “Senate speeds ahead with bill to quash gambling machines.”

• “Ohioans head to West Virginia as table games debut at tracks.” (more…)

So Allen County Sheriff Dan Beck is back to illegal immigration.

Did something take the sheriff’s mind off the societal ills of gambling he was campaigning against not so long ago? Has the subject become a bit too uncomfortable now that we know Lima City Councilman Ray Magnus pulled in almost $1.5 million in gambling in just a year? Not so long ago, Beck was “protecting” the community by keeping out gambling. Turns out, there’s already a lot of it here. (more…)

There’s a 9-year-old girl Wes and Sue Richard would like to meet. They believe she’s the reason they still have a house.

Here’s what they know about her: She is 9 years old, or at least was when she spotted the fire in their Elm Street home. She was with her mother in a red Trans Am the night of Aug. 25, driving on Elm Street.

They don’t have her name. They might never have seen her, as far as they know. (more…)

It’s got to be rough when, as a tough-on-immigration Republican, you start thinking of someone who isn’t supposed be here as a person. Suddenly, it’s not so easy to say rules are rules — particularly stupid rules — when you recognize a human is involved. (more…)